By Madeline Perez
Good morning starshine, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you’ve seen the cult classic “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” or even, for you old people, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” If not, stop reading this right now. I’m not going to be the one to expose you to the horrors of the chocolate factory before you’re ready, but if one day you happen to see either of the movies, come back to me. I’ll be waiting. Anyway, as someone who has been exposed to a fair share of Christian theology, I couldn’t help but notice a trend, and one night (as in four days ago), realization struck me like a van at a protest. Were the kids in the chocolate factory based on the seven deadly sins? As I manically used red strings to connect pictures to other pictures, I was forced to confront exactly how deep this metaphorical rabbit hole goes.
I consulted my jumbled, scattered memory that I sometimes use to help solve mysteries. Could the mystical candy land Wonka introduces somehow represent the Garden of Eden (or, “Garden of Eatin’,” if you will)? Could what at first seems like a paradise, actually be a thinly-veiled test of temptation? The entire factory: a diabetes-inducing world masterfully orchestrated and controlled by Willy Wonka, propagated by slave labor, where children go to die. Maybe die is the wrong word. Where children go to get ironically punished for their respective hubris; their arrogance and defiance in the face of Capitalist God Wonka.
Augustus Gloop
Let’s start with the most painfully obvious. You see, Augustus is gluttony because he’s fat. He drinks from the chocolate pool because he can’t help himself, even though God specifically told him not to, and then he falls in due to his poor, fat-child coordination. Him clogging the chocolate tube is actually supposed to represent how his arteries are clogged with fats and cholesterols.
Violet Beauregarde
As someone whose sin is pride, Violet’s sense of superiority is almost as bad as business majors’ when they try to tell me about investing. Violet is very achieved and flaunts it in a way that makes you want to rip her guts out. Funnily enough, she turns into a big blue ball—haunting the nightmares of assholes mad at their girlfriends for not putting out.
Veruca Salt
Veruca’s sin is not only greed, but stupid aimless greed. Why the hell do you want a big yellow egg so bad?? Or a squirrel?? At least want something cool like the new Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania. Veruca’s dad also commits the sin of being a weak beta cuck, doing whatever his daughter says and spoiling her with his beta bucks, but sadly that one was overlooked in the bible. You may ask yourself- wait, are all these children just victims of really bad parenting and then get punished for it? The answer is simple: yes. But, as the Bible says, the sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons. Sucks for them, I guess.
Mike Teavee
Now, some may argue that Mike TV’s sin is sloth. “He sits at home all day watching television and playing video games. He doesn’t work, he doesn’t clean, he just screams for his mom to bring him his tendies.” While you’re slightly correct, you are also infinitely wrong. Mike Teavee is a gamer, which means he’s fuelled by gamer wrath. He smashes that pumpkin solely because he likes to see beautiful things destroyed. His sin is wrath and he wants to run over pedestrians in GTA IV so badly he couldn’t give two shits about chocolate or love or literally anything else.
Charlie Bucket
Charlie’s sin is envy, though it might not be obvious at first. You see, Charlie is envious of these aforementioned rich, privileged kids. He looks through the window of the candy shop with almost as much yearning as gay kids in love with their best friends in early high school. He differs from the other children in one very important way: his youth, shackled with the responsibility of caring for his family, has matured and humbled him. When he is offered his respective temptation, the strange, shady man offering to pay him for the Everlasting Gobstopper (obviously another test from Mr. Wonka), Charlie is presented with something much more intense than the other kids: money, something that could finally pull his family out of poverty and let them eat something besides Cabbage Soup for every meal. In his infinite good-heartedness and stupidity, he resists and understands that since he has a secure attachment with his parents, he doesn’t really need much else to fill that hole. That’s why he wins. I don’t care that he drank the fizzy lifting drink that one time! That wasn’t his test! It was stupid Grandpa Joe that convinced him. Wait. GRANDPA JOE!
STUPID FUCKING GRANDPA JOE
GRANDPA JOE REPRESENTS SLOTH! HE LAYS DOWN IN THAT FOUR-PERSON BED WITH THE OTHER GRANDPARENTS, DOING JACK-SHIT AND PRETENDING TO BE DISABLED! HE DOESN’T HELP OUT, HE DOESN’T COOK OR CLEAN, HE JUST BENEFITS FROM THE FRUITS OF THE REST OF HIS FAMILY’S LABOR AND EATS CABBAGE SOUP LIKE A FATASS! SUDDENLY CHARLIE GETS A GOLDEN TICKET AND IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THE CENTURY, GRANDPA JOE PRETENDS TO REGAIN THE USE OF HIS LEGS AND THIS NEVER GETS ADDRESSED AGAIN. WHAT THE HELL! I’M SO MAD!!!
But, wait. I’m missing one, aren’t I? I can practically feel you screaming at me: “Those are only six sins!!! You forgot lust, idiot!” And to that I respond: these are kids I’m talking about, sicko. What’s wrong with you? If I really wanted to make the stretch, I guess I would say that lust is what the audience feels when you see those little Oompa Loompa men. Yeah, that’s right. You weren’t the only one.
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